The macro view is too long to be provable. Until now.

Business craves to be newest, biggest, best, cheapest. While the media are fixated on the far future as a problem, brand managers and open-innovators get on with making things we can buy today and tomorrow. The two ends of the timeline are connected in some companies and not in others. Lots of others.

Knowing we’re good at what we do today isn’t enough. The pressure is on to ‘know’ that we’ll be great tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Our business plan becomes a hybrid view of what we think will happen (macro) crossed with the certainty of what we forecast to happen (micro).

Ask around: how many 5-year objectives last year are a 4-year target this year? Is there a new 5-year plan?

We rely on two things:

• The micro view is short enough to be realistic and believable.
• The macro view is too long to be provable.

Until now. Now, it’s possible to apply weighting to your views. Now, you can create realistic future scenarios to plan into. All it takes is a bit of future thinking. It’s what we do.